Today I have the new Too Faced Shadow Bon Bons palette from their Love Sweet Love Collection for Christmas/Holiday 2012. This palette is available on the Too Faced website, Ulta, Sephora (in store and online), I purchased mine from Apothica. The palette retails for $42.00 US.

Want to know what really attracts me to Too Faced products? Their very sweet, girlie, vintage/romantic inspired packaging. I am a total sucker for that kind of stuff. The outer box is slick card stock in a soft pink printed in gold and black. On the back of the box is a photograph of the contents of the palette. (I am a bonehead who forgot to take a picture of the back. Sorry.)

Inside the outer box is a paperboard palette covered in a pink velvet like material embossed in gold. The top flap folds down over the front of the palette and is held in place by a magnet and there is a small ribbon loop to grasp so that you can pull the palette open.There is also a romance card that describes the contents of the palette and has a few drawings of suggested looks and how to create them. While I like the look of this palette, I mean, pink velvet and gold embossing? Yes, please! The velvet is highly impractical as it grabs on to any free roaming dust particles or cat hairs floating through the air in my sanctuary and is a bear to keep clean. For now, I am keeping it in it's outer box to keep it clean.

This palette contains twelve full sized eye shadows, each weighing 0.03 Oz/0.90 g for a total of 0.36 Oz/10.8 g, a deluxe sample sized Shadow Insurance in Candlelight, 0.17 Oz/5 g and a full sized tube of their Lashgasm "fluffing" mascara in black, 0.4 Fl Oz/12 mL.

Here are the twelve shadows up close. This photo was taken with flash, to get the best colour representation possible with my *cough* oh-so-stellar *cough* camera. These shadows are a mix of matte, shimmer and glitter textures in soft neutrals and sweet candy and cake colours.

Swatches! Top swatches are over primer (not the Candlelight), bottom swatches are over lightly moisturized bare skin.

From the left:

*Shadow Insurance in Candlelight. A soft, glowing golden ivory with some gold shimmer.

*Vanilla- Matte, soft, silky, a little powdery and a bit chalky. Nice, not stellar pigmentation and colour payoff. This is a very nice brow highlight and inner corner shadow.

*Cut the Cake- Soft, slightly luminous lavender with a touch of interference pigment that provides a subtle gold shift. The texture is soft, somewhat powdery with nice pigmentation and colour payoff.

*Framboise- Cool, purple shimmer with pink and gold fleck. The texture is soft, velvety and somewhat flaky. Look out for fallout. Terrific pigmentation and colour payoff.

*Coffee Bean- (Heavily swatched.) Matte dark brown with plenty of pigmentation that feels soft and somewhat creamy in the pan but it swatches patchy, it skips and clumps, almost like smearing clay.

*Peach Fuzz- Soft, barely there matte peach with gold glitter. Very pretty in the pan, when this shadow is applied, the peach nearly disappears, letting the gold glitter take center stage. This would be really pretty for a party or special date night. The texture is somewhat soft, the base shadow pigmentation isn't great but the glitter is very pretty.

*Hot Cocoa- Soft, light milk chocolate brown with a gentle bronze shimmer and a little gold fleck. Soft, a little powdery with nice pigmentation and colour payoff. This one is even better over primer.

*Candy Rose- Sweet bubblegum pink matte with silver glitter. This is similar to Peach Fuzz, the base shadow pigmentation is much better, the glitter is less obvious. The texture is very similar to Peach Fuzz.

Lovey-Dovey- Beautiful brown/bronze shifting shimmer. This shadow is very soft and velvety. It has great pigmentation and colour payoff.

*Nude Beach- Soft gold shimmer with fine gold glitter. The texture is a little stiff in the pan, the shadow it's self is a bit flaky. This one is best applied and worn over primer.

*Cinnamon Sugar- Copper-bronze shimmer. This has a soft, velvety, slightly flaky texture with great pigmentation and colour payoff.

*Marzipan- Yukky to eat... Pretty to wear on your eyelids. This is a softly luminous cocoa rose. Not really matte, not quite a shimmer. The texture is smooth, a little powdery with nice pigmentation and colour payoff. It is even better over primer.

*Licorice Latte- (Heavily swatched.) Matte black with a copper rose fleck. This is very stiff and a bit hard in the pan, the texture is chalky, powdery and it skips and drags when swatched. Primer only helps slightly. Very slightly. This is not a good shadow.

Next up is the Lashgasm mascara. Too Faced calls this their "fluffing mascara" meaning, I assume, volumizing.

The wand is tapered, plastic with teeth rather than the typical bristle brush. The teeth are fairly short, the brush part of the wand is flexible.

The texture of this mascara is thick, a bit stiff and clay-like. I am accustomed to and prefer a wetter, thinner formula. This mascara applied well, it took me a little getting used to but once I got a feel for it, it went on nicely and fairly smoothly. I got a full coat and the result I was looking for without too much time or work or having to apply multiple coats. I did have a bit of clumping and this mascara does not appreciate having a lash comb run through it. It did "fluff" my lashes, they looked full and had good volume and their natural length was nicely enhanced.

This mascara feels very heavy on the lashes. I was hyper aware of my lashes, for a while and I had to get used to them, almost as if I were wearing false lashes. Once I got used to it, it didn't bother me any longer but I have to say, I have never had to "get used to" a mascara, before. Lashgasm stayed soft and pliable on my lashes, all day which was nice. It didn't get hard and crunchy, something that really annoys me about some mascaras. I experienced moderate flaking from this mascara over the course of the ten hours or so I wore it. I don't like flakes. Not one bit. I may or may not use this up. I would most certainly not purchase this mascara separately.

Eye look using some of the shadows from this palette (if I remember correctly), Cut the Cake, Hot Cocoa, Lovey-Dovey, a little Marzipan and Vanilla and the Lashgasm mascara. Liner is Milani Liquif-eye in brown. I didn't use the Shadow Insurance in Candlelight, I chose instead to use my Palladio Herbal Eye Primer.

What I was crazy about with this palette:

*It's pretty! I love it, inside and out. Even the velvet exterior.

*The shadows. Most of them are good quality, swatch and apply smoothly with decent to very good pigmentation and colour payoff and blend beautifully. These shadows wear well all day; I suggest a primer for maximum payoff and wear time.

*The Shadow Insurance in Candlelight. This is a good product, tho a bit shimmery for my taste for day to day use. For evening, or a party tho... I am all over it.

What I wasn't so wild about:

*The shadows are a bit inconsistent in quality, they don't all have fantastic pigmentation and colour payoff, a couple have terrible texture. Why is it so danged difficult for companies to make/source really good matte black shadows? They are out there. These shadows are soft in tone, overall. If you are into deeply pigmented, bold shadows, this palette may not be to your taste. I like softer tones, so these shadows are right in my wheelhouse.

*Too Faced Lashgasm mascara. Not a fan. The mascara did "fluff" my lashes nicely and enhanced their natural length but the texture wasn't to my taste, it was a bit clumpy and didn't comb out and it flaked; a deal breaker for me.

Bottom line; I recommend this palette if you know and love the individual components from Too Faced. In my opinion, at $42.00 it is a good deal for a lot of product. If you aren't so familiar with this brand, I would suggest that you swatch the shadows in store, if you can, maybe get a sample of the mascara and test drive it before you invest in the whole package. I think that this palette would make a terrific Christmas/Holiday gift for any makeup lover in your life or for yourself.

I think that I covered everything, but if you feel that I missed anything, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to drop me a comment. (Please wait for the Disqus system to load or I won't see your comment.) If you own this palette, I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you think that you would like to buy it, it is available online and in store from Sephora, Ulta, the Too Faced website, Apothica and other similar retailers.

Thank you so much for popping in and reading. Have a great day.

*This palette was purchased from Apothica by me with funds paid to me by Skincare RX for hosting their ad on my blog page. This review was not required by or influenced in any way by Skincare RX or Apothica. I was not paid to trial and review this product.*

You did a great job on your eyes! I'm loving Vanilla & Cut the Cake. I wonder if this is still at Sephora? I went there Thursday looking for the Sephora Cinderella eye palette and of course they've been sold out for a long time. I don't own anything from TooFaced (yet) but this is a very pretty set, even if I don't use every color! I'll have to go check it out.

Thank you so much. That is so kind of you to say. :) Vanilla and Cut the Cake are a couple of my faves in this palette, for sure. Cut the Cake is a purple I can wear without looking as if someone socked me in the eyes. LOL

Sephora does indeed have this palette available on their website. Here is the link: http://www.sephora.com/product/productDetail.jsp?skuId=1463835&productId=P375913&_requestid=157807#!keyword=too%20faced%20shadow%20bon%20bons

It is on the Too Faced site, as well: https://www.toofaced.com/p-1308-shadow-bon-bons.aspx?

That's it--thank you! It's showing out of stock at my local Sephora but still available online. Hopefully soon I'll place an order, since Sephora also just came out with new 100-point rewards that I want. And here just 5 or 6 days ago I was all "I'm going to use up what I have and not buy any new makeup..." But it looks really good on you, so... Thanks a ton for the lemming, Erika! *sarcasm* LOL

Heh heh! My pleasure. Playing evil enabler is one of my greatest life pleasures. Hey, I get it from others, I'm just sharing the love. :D This palette is nice, tho. Really. I ended up heaving the mascara, tho. It flaked on me like a mofo. I gave it a fair shot, I wore it five times and every time, my face was decorated with little black flakes. Unacceptable. Buh-bye! (YMMV with the mascara, that is my big problem area... Some people have trouble with smudging or transferring, for me it is flaking. LOL)